


DTR

by cassiewrites



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, just the gentlest regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:12:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4651818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiewrites/pseuds/cassiewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's been back for a year, and things are almost the way they used to be for him and Steve, albeit a little more complicated. The threat of alien invasion wasn't as imminent in the past, that's for sure.<br/>Still, everyone has started to notice that Steve and Bucky may be a bit more friendly than they let on. Natasha figures this out and gives Steve one challenge: Define The Relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	DTR

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick little fic! I actually wrote it a few months ago and forgot about it, so I figure I'll just post it now :)

“So, what’s up with you and Bucky?”

It’s a simple question. It’s one Steve knows everyone has been wondering, and he’s been expecting for a while, but that doesn’t make it any less of a blow when Steve hears someone actually _ask_ it.

And it’s Natasha, of course. He knew it would be.

Steve sputters on his coffee and it dribbles down his chin. At least she didn’t ask while he was eating his cereal. That could’ve been a choking hazard.

“ _Smooth,_ Cap,” Natasha says with a wicked smirk. She takes a delicate sip of her own latte.

Steve wipes his chin with a napkin and clears his throat. “What, uh--what do you mean?”

He doesn’t have to meet her gaze to know the look she’s giving him. It’s the one that clearly says, _Do you think I’m stupid?_ Which is typically reserved for Clint, or Tony when he’s explaining something to her like she doesn’t have an IQ of 160.

“Seriously? You’re going to keep avoiding the question?”

“I’m not avoiding anything!” The reply comes out of Steve’s throat at a weirdly high pitch, one that definitely doesn’t sound as chill as he’s trying to act.

“Whatever you say...” Natasha says in that ominous way of hers. She takes a slow sip of her coffee.

This is not proper breakfast conversation, Steve finds himself thinking. Much too stressful for the most important meal of the day.

While it was bound to come up eventually, Steve knows the incident that incited her mentioning it now. Just five minutes ago, actually, right before Bucky left...

 

-

 

Natasha arrived this morning with a much more cheery disposition than usual. She’s not a morning person in the least, she must’ve already had her first triple shot of the day. “Hello! Would you like to join the church of the latter day saints and live eternally?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Good morning, Elder Romanoff.”

“I knew you’d love _Book of Mormon._ ” They’d just seen the musical last weekend and Steve has been humming “Turn It Off” to himself ever since. Natasha invites herself in, strolling over to Steve’s kitchen and peering into the cabinets.

“Please, make yourself at home,” Steve announces pointlessly.

“No donuts this morning?” Natasha says, sounding disappointed.

Steve huffs a laugh. “Don’t you have your own kitchen?”

“Yes, but it’s not nearly as well-stocked as yours,” she smirks.

Now that they all live in Avengers Tower, thanks to the generous nature of Tony Stark and the fact that he didn’t feel like replacing the rest of the letters in “Stark,” Natasha comes over most mornings. She gets a cup of coffee, mooches off their breakfast, snoops through cabinets. Like best friends do.

Bucky finally pads through the kitchen barefoot--bare- _everything_ , almost, save for a pair of flannel boxers. As he got more comfortable with Steve and his friends, he’s worn less and less clothes. Steve can’t deny that he likes where this trend is headed...

“Morning, sunshine,” Natasha greets him.

Bucky returns a groggy “G’mornin’,” his hair still dripping wet from the shower. He’d probably have hair longer than Natasha by now if Steve hadn’t convinced him to a cut a few inches off.

Natasha seems him headed toward the coffee machine, so she calls out, “Make me a cup, would you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky replies passively.

Tony bought Steve a fancy coffee maker as a housewarming gift, but Bucky is the only one who knows how to use it, funny enough. Steve really doesn’t need to know how to make espresso shots or lattes or chaifrappamochachinos. All he wants is a hot cup of something that resembles coffee, God knows he’s had worse.

Steve pours a bowl of cereal with milk for himself, and Natasha takes the box and eats straight from the bag.

“Did you hear about Thor?” Natasha asks.

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Is he back in New York?”

She shrugs. “Came by just to see Jane, apparently, but I heard she’s in Europe somewhere. Stockholm, maybe.”

Steve sighs after he finishes chewing his spoonful. “I don’t see how they’ve stayed together...they barely ever get to see each other.”

“Long distance is a bitch. Pretty much the longest distance possible, in their case, though,” she snorts.

Steve smiles back half-heartedly. He himself knows a bit about long distance. Seven decades of distance.

Bucky finishes fixing her latte and Steve’s coffee and brings it over to the counter where they’re sitting. He’s their favorite barista, because he always knows their orders _and_ how to spell their names.

“Thanks, dollface,” Natasha says sweetly as she sips her latte. She’s been trying out nicknames for Bucky for weeks, now she’s getting creative.

“You know if you encourage her she’ll keep coming back,” Steve mentions to Bucky.

A smirk tugs at Bucky’s lips, but Natasha protests. “So I’m a stray cat now?”

“Just a little less cute.” She smacks Steve’s arm and he tries to pretend like that didn’t hurt like hell, especially with those long nails of hers.

By now, Steve has grabbed the newspaper and he’s looking over the first few pages. Bucky hovers in Steve’s personal space before reaching around him and grabbing the page with the comics, just like old times. Bucky stays pressed to his side, scanning over the funnies, poking at Steve when he finds one they can smile at.

Natasha watches this whole exchange with amusement.

The alien coffee machine makes a noise and Bucky leaves, comes back with a shot of espresso, which he wastes no time on.

“You headed somewhere?” Steve asks, putting down the paper.

Bucky flexes his metal hand. “Tune-up.” He meets with Tony every month or so to check up on the arm, buff out some scratches. Steve thinks it’s just an excuse for Tony to play with a new gadget.

Bucky’s already headed toward the door before Steve reminds him, “Are you planning on wearing pants?”

Bucky stops in his tracks, swivels toward the bedroom. He comes out a few minutes later looking slightly more presentable, wearing sweatpants and a Metallica t-shirt.

“You know Metallica?” Natasha questions, looking surprised.

“Not really, but Clint told me Tony would get a kick out of it,” Bucky shrugs lightly.

Before leaving, and here’s the part that surely arose Natasha’s suspicions, Bucky goes back over to Steve one more time. Lingering over Steve’s shoulder, Bucky runs a hand through his short blonde hair and steals a spoonful of cereal.

Steve barely reacts at all, maybe leans into his touch a bit, and says a quick, “See you later.”

Bucky repeats, “Later,” grabs his keys, and he’s out the door.

 

-

 

“We’re just really comfortable with each other, okay,” Steve promises, and it almost sounds convincing.

“See,” Natasha starts, “That’s what we used to think-”

“We?”

“You know, Clint, Sam, Tony-”

“You talk about Bucky and I?” Steve cuts in, mouth agape.

Natasha continues seamlessly. “Of course, anyway, we figured you guys were best friends, you’re reunited, you’re making up for lost time. But then it got...weird.”

“Weird? How?” Steve frowns. There’s no way he’s going to continue eating his cereal now, so he shoves the bowl a little further away from him.

“Not a _bad_ -weird, just...different,” Natasha pauses, thinking for a moment. “Oh! Your birthday.”

Steve gives her a look, oblivious to what she’s trying to suggest. “What was weird about my birthday? All we did was go to Coney Island.”

She smirks. “And you rode the ferris wheel with Bucky and convinced the operator to stop it at the top for you guys. That’s a classic move.”

Steve gets up to take his abandoned bowl over to the sink, turning to reply to Natasha. “It wasn’t a _move._ Bucky had only been back a couple months, he was still missing some of his memory. We used to ride the ferris wheel when we were kids, I just wanted him to remember that.”

“Did he?” Natasha asks, voice softer. “Remember?”

Steve turns away as his mouth curves upward. “Yeah, he did.” He rinses out the bowl and grabs the dish towel hanging from the oven handle to dry it off.

“Okay, that’s a cute story,” Natasha admits. She props her elbows up on the bar to lean closer to him. “But that’s not my only example. Exhibit two: the Halloween party.”

“You call that a party?” Steve raises an eyebrow. “All we did was watch Batman movies in Tony’s theater room all night.”

Natasha points a finger at him. “Hey, we also wore cheap costumes from Party City and ate candy corn until we got sick. No one died, so that’s a pretty successful party in my book.”

Steve gives her a look, but she explains no further. “So, what about it?”

“Don’t think we didn’t notice you and Bucky all snuggled up together,” Natasha replies knowingly. “You two had one couch all to yourselves, Bucky’s head was in your _lap-_ ”

“He fell asleep!” Steve retorts, though he can feel his defense weakening.

“I know, it was adorable. Clint took pictures. I still have some saved on my phone-” She reaches in her pocket and pulls out her phone, but Steve stops her. He puts the bowl and the towel down in frustration, yet she continues.

“Do I even need to mention New Year’s Eve? When you two were conveniently nowhere to be found from 11:50 to 12:20?”

“How the hell do you remember-”

She cuts him off and gives a nonchalant wave of her hand. “I’m a spy, I keep a very thorough log of activities.”

Steve sighs in exasperation, though has no other comment. He remembers that night, embarrassingly enough. He did sneak off with Bucky, because everyone was hanging out on the roof and neither of them could stand the fireworks. They went down to Tony’s bar and took a bottle of his most expensive scotch. Not that it would have any effect on them, but purely to annoy Tony, and because they knew he could afford it.

They wandered around the seemingly endless Avengers Tower for most of their absence, looking into all the rooms, speculating about the purpose of each. Seriously, before the Avengers moved in, what did Tony do with all this space? It can’t take that much space to build robots.

Eventually, they found a room with a record machine, and laughed between swigs of scotch about the irony of it. Now, being honest...Steve did have some moves that night. He kept remembering how Bucky taught him to pick up dames back in the forties.

(Step one: buy her a drink.) They drank half that bottle and decided that expensive scotch was just as shitty as cheap scotch.

(Step two: give her compliments. _Dames love that sorta thing._ ) Bucky looked sharp in his new suit, so Steve told him so. Well, what he actually said was, “You clean up alright, Barnes.” That was before he spilled hummus on his lapel and heard Tony audibly yelp, muttering something about _Armani_.

(Step three: touch her arm, leg--anywhere that won’t get you slapped.) Bucky’s metal arm had just gotten buffed, so he pulled up his sleeve to show how shiny it was. Steve ran his fingers down Bucky’s forearm over the smooth metal plates. When he reached Bucky’s fingers, he carefully interlaced theirs together.

(Step four: seal the deal.) Steve glanced down at his watch and gave a quiet, “Happy New Year, Buck.” Bucky smiled back at him and said the same. They listened to a few more records and went back up to the party a little later.

Steve tries not to think about that night, as he always remembers it as a failure. He spent that whole week building up the courage to tell Bucky, once and for all, how he felt, but his nerves got the best of him. There was something in Bucky’s expression, like anticipation, and after midnight it changed. Like a flash of disappointment...

Steve looks up and meets Natasha’s gaze. “Exhibit four, and the last one I’ll mention: the fact that Bucky just walked out of _your_ bedroom, after using _your_ shower, even though there are four other bedrooms in this penthouse.”

It’s true. Just like everything else she’s said. Bucky used to get panic attacks in the night, so he’d made a habit of sneaking into Steve’s bed, like back when they were kids. Eventually the panic stopped, but Bucky stayed.

Steve leans his back up against the counter, waiting for what Natasha has to say next.

“Believe it or not, I’ve been in love before, Steve. I know the signs. How long am I supposed to wait for a couple of my best friends to figure it out?”

 _I’ve been asking myself the same thing,_ Steve thinks, saying nothing.

“Do you love him?” She asks, point blank.

“Yeah,” There’s no hesitation. He then adds, “He’s the closest thing I have left to family.”

Natasha snorts, and Steve looks up at her in irritation. “Family. Right. I don’t doubt that’s true, but you two are something more. It’s not 1942 anymore, you know, if you’re scared-”

“I’m not scared,” Steve states, and he means it. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks, all I care about is Bucky.”

Natasha smiles as Steve confirms everything she already knew. Her expression shows about 60% genuine pride, and the other 40% says _I told you so_. “Well, if it makes a difference, I could be having this exact same conversation with Bucky right now.”

“But if,” Steve begins, considering what she’s said. “If Bucky feels the same way, why hasn’t he said anything?”

“Why haven’t you?” She laughs. “For a couple of really intelligent guys, you two are idiots in love. And I know you’re going to ask for some of my excellent, always-welcome advice, so here it is: Define the relationship.”

Steve chews on his lip. “That’s it?”

A smirk tugs at Natasha’s mouth. “That’s it. Ask him the same question I asked you. Then text me and tell me when the wedding is.”

 

-

 

It’s been hours since Natasha left, but Steve’s anxiety level is still through the roof. Although it was unwarranted, she did leave him with some good advice. Advice that he has no idea what to do with.

He’s tried to think of a plan, but like every other time he’s tried to build up the courage to tell Bucky, his focus deflects onto every bad situation. The worst, the one he fears most, is Bucky being disgusted and wanting nothing to do with him ever again.

He doubts that would happen, but he can’t stop thinking about it. Sure, they were born in a time period when people didn’t believe in homosexuality, didn’t even give a thought to bisexuality, but they’ve grown a lot since then. They’ve adapted to the times, and it’s not like either of them were particularly religious before. Steve has never tried to bring it up explicitly, but sometimes he’ll show Bucky articles in the paper that mention same-sex marriage and issues like that, and Bucky never seems offended. One time Bucky even came home ranting about those Westboro Baptist Church people, but most of his ranting was just muttering about “assholes” and “bigots.”

Anyway, Bucky is his best friend. He’s been there for him through good times and bad, sickness and health...Jesus, he’s already reciting marriage vows in his head.

Steve’s heart skips a beat when he hears the front door open. It skips another when he sees Bucky walking through the door. This man is gonna give him a heart attack.

Bucky has his hair pulled up into a half-ponytail, like he often does to keep it out of his face, and he’s looking down at his phone intently. That’s how he looks at his phone most of the time, though, because after all this time he’s still trying to figure out how it works.

Steve has no idea what he’s doing when he walks toward Bucky. Still, zero plan when he’s a foot away and Bucky is finally looking up. Bucky opens his mouth to utter a greeting, but Steve cuts him off with his own mouth. He places his hands on the sides of Bucky’s face and goes for it, surging forward into a kiss. Bucky’s greeting turns into a muffled noise of surprise. They stagger back, lips still locked, and bump against the front door. Bucky’s phone falls out of his hand and hits the floor with a _clang._

For a moment, Steve dreads that his worst fear is coming true, when Bucky’s arms go limp and he doesn’t reciprocate. But as he starts to pull away, Steve is suddenly pulled back in by Bucky’s strong arms. Oh yeah, now he’s definitely responding.

It’s way better than Steve ever imagined, and he’s been imagining this moment for a long time. From the supple movement of Bucky’s lips, soft and plush against his own, to the grating roughness of his stubble, it’s a sensory overload that’s making him tingle all over.

Steve’s heart is beating ten times faster than usual, and when he’s pressed against Bucky’s chest, he can feel his heart beating the same. If they weren’t super soldiers, they’d surely be dead.

When they finally break away, minutes later, they’re both flushed and breathing heavy.

“So,” Steve exhales, “What’s up with us?”

From his wide eyes to his slack jaw, it’s clear Bucky is still in shock. “What?” He breathes.

“Us,” Steve says. He takes a step back and scratches his head. “I mean, uh, what’s our...relationship.”

Bucky pauses, then huffs a laugh. He lets his head fall back against the front door. “Jesus, Stevie, you overthink everything.”

A crease forms between Steve’s brows. “And that means...”

“It means,” Bucky steps forward to place his hands on Steve’s hips. “I’ve been waiting for you to do that for a hell of a long time.”

He kisses Steve long and lingering, and Steve draws back with a grin. “So it’s my fault we’ve both been idiots for seventy years?”

Bucky nods in jest, and replies in a sultry voice, “I think I can forgive you.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but then Bucky pulls him back in and leaves his eyes rolling for a whole different reason.

Minutes later, after their lips are swollen and they’ve caught their breath, they stand with their foreheads touching, content in the embrace.

“Did I mention that I love you?” Bucky asks.

Steve doesn’t know how much more of this his heart can take. He smirks, and replies, “Not yet.”

“Oh, well, I do. If that wasn’t clear.”

“Thanks for clearing that up,” Steve mentions with a hint of sarcasm. “I love you, too.”

Bucky clears his throat and says, “I’m glad we’re in agreement.” They both break into laughter, and that laughter follows them through the apartment, and somehow stops when they reach the bedroom. It turns out Bucky still has a few moves he hasn’t taught Steve...

 

-

 

_Steve10:08 PM_

We’re thinking spring, and you’re not allowed to wear a white dress.

 

_Natasha 10:09 PM_

!!!!!!!!!!!!

 


End file.
